Local Yokels and 30 seconds of fame.

Let me begin by apologizing for my long absence from the blog, unfortunately life has kept me particularly busy lately. However, I have not been completely absent from the blogosphere. I've been arguing with anthropogenic global warming "skeptics" over at The Volokh Conspiracy - Harry Eagar has proven to be particularly resistant to things like peer-reviewed articles, quotes from scientists he supposedly respects, and evidence in general.

I've also been responding to my favorite hometown forum, "30 Seconds." I have had a few more exchanges with Benton Renaissance man, Bob Runyon. I will probably publish these when I publish the third and hopefully final installment of "Runyon's expertise, does it know no bounds." I'm hoping to put that up later this week.

This installment of "Local yokels . . ." focuses on another area hero though, on one brave man not afraid to stand up to the overwhelming forces of the homosexual agenda by crying foul whenever there covert agents undermine morality and decency. Meet PanAmerican Man! I present, from the Sept. 29, 2007 ed. of The Press Enterprise, his initial broadside against the homosexual agenda:

According to a recent coulumn by Maggie Gallagher, a Methodist organization in New Jersy has lost its real estate tax exemption because it refuses to allow homosexual marriages on its property. This action is based upon the absurd idea that one's free choice of sexual behavior equates with racial discrimination. One's race is genetically determined, one's sexual behavior is not; i.e., celibacy and abstinance. It should be obvious that homofascists and their enlightened allies are working to secularize American society by undermining the separation of church and state and religious freedom. What next? Will Catholic and Orthodox churches be forced to ordain female lesbian priests?

PanAmerican man was attempting to discuss this case. I know, he seems to have left some material facts out of his version. Here's my response, posted several days later (though I unfortunately forgot what day it was actually printed):

9.29 PanAmerican man fails to tell the whole story while reciting his homophobic rant. The Methodist organization lost their tax exempt status for a property on the boardwalk that they held out to the public to rent for events, usually weddings. The church is not losing tax exempt status, only the pavilion. The organization retains the right to refuse to allow unions at their church, and they do not have to officiate the civil union. However, to see the inherit bigotry in the church’s position, simply replace lesbian with black and have the church use the same argument that some Christians used to defend slavery during the civil war. Sexual orientation, like race, is a biologically determined, immutable characteristic. Distorted half truths are as bad as outright lies.

In his response, published in Oct. 14, 2007 ed. of "30 Seconds," PanAmerican Man took umbrage with my argument that homosexuality was biologically determined and uses that infallible source of knowledge to rebut me, Francis Collins.

Atheotatus: Where do you get your information? According to Francis Collins, PhD, MD, MPH, head of the Human Genome Project, the heritability factor for homosexuality is only 20 percent. The heritability factor for race is 100 percent: that is, a male and female of the Caucasian race will have Caucasian children, not Black or Asian. Understand? Also, the term homophobia is deceptive. Emperical research shows that persons with anti-homosexual attitudes do not show the clinical signs of phobias in general, and rather than being dysfunctional, are highly functional individuals (Sexual Orientation: Science, Education, and Policy, under sexual prejudice). Does name-calling substitute for fact?

I know, he's got Francis Collins! What am I going to do? How do I ever respond? Well, I'll post the response I sent in today - this should be published in the next week or so:

PanAmerican: Collins' conclusion is based on one study, ignoring other studies. The majority of scientists conclude that sexual orientation is caused by prenatal factors, making biology determinative. I suggest perusing PubMed (Behavioral Neuroscience, vol. 121, issue 5 has a nice article)? While homophobes can be highly functional, the only study on topic shows that homophobes tend to have repressed homosexual tendencies. Simply think of Haggard, Allen, Craig, and DiFatta and remember Shakespeare, "[thou] doth protest too much, methinks." I called your rant "homophobic," not you. I notice you aren't addressing the facts of Methodist case.

This could probably do with a little explication. I'm sure everyone is curious about what specific study Collin's used and what studies he's ignored and what study I'm citing that argues that homophobes express repressed homosexual tendencies. However, I think I'll save the exploration of the relevant material for a longer, more detailed post on the current state of research into the biology of homosexuality (may be coming out either this weekend or sometime later?). I will post a few of the studies at the end though. However, I will note that the study Collins relies on was preceded by another study by the same researchers that found over a 50% rate of heritability. Well Collins is a scientist of some note, he continually fails to take into account all the relevant evidence when attempting to confirm his own faith-based beliefs.

Back to PanAmerican Man, he apparently felt it was necessary to write two "30 Second" entries to respond to me, and here is the second one which was published Oct. 15:

Atheotatous ("the most atheist one") recently stated that "sexual orientation, like race, is a biologically determined immutable characteristic," but fails to cite any study that identifies a specific homosexual gene. Can anyone cite any study that proves that any complex form of human behavior, e.g., sexual behavior, is genetically determined? Why is it that identical twins, with identical DNA, are not always of the same "sexual orientation"? Archives of Sexual Behavior, Oct. '03: "...the author (Robert Spitzer, M.D. and homosexual advocate) became convinced of the possibility of change in some gay men and lesbians." If some politically incorrect truths are inconvenient, too bad.

He knows what my name means! I'm so honored, he must have shown enough interest to Google the word! Here's the response I submitted:

PanAmerican: Plenty of studies are available on PubMed, but citing them in “30 Seconds” would eliminate space for comment. Human behavior is directly impacted by brain physiology. Remember the case of Phineas Gage or how chemical imbalances can lead to severe depression, etc. About twins, one should remember that identical genetic material does not lead to identical physiology. Fine details, such as fingerprints, can differ and some studies have used the number of finger ridges as a predictability factor of homosexuality. Also, there are some limitations to using twins to determine genetic factors due to the large number of uncontrolled variables. If some truths are politically or religiously inconvenient, that’s too bad.

I'll touch on Robert Spitzer in my future post on homosexuality; however, if you are eager you can see what the APA thought of his paper on changing sexual orientation at the Wiki.

Some articles of interest:

Adams, Henry E. & Lester W. Wright, Jr., Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?, 105 J. of Abnormal Psychol. 440 (1996).

Abrams, Michael, Born Gay?, 28 Discover 58 (2007).

Bodo, Cristian & Emilie F. Rissman, Androgen receptor is essential for sexual differentiation of responses to olfactory cues in mice, 25 European J. of Neuroscience 2182 (2007).

Sven Bocklandt et al., Extreme skewing of X chromosome inactivation in mothers of homosexual men, 118 Human Genetics 691 (2006)

Keller, Julia C., Straight Talk About the Gay Gene, 16 Science & Spirit 21 (2005).

Murphy, Timothy F., The search for the gay gene, 330 BMJ 1033 (2005).

Hershberger, Scott L. & Nancy L. Segal, The Cognitive, Behavioral, and Personality Profiles of a Male Monozygotic Triplet Set Discordant for Sexual Orientation, 33 Archives of Sexual Behavior 497 (2004).

Brian S. Mustanski et al., A genomewide scan of male sexual orientation, 116 Human Genetics 272 (2005).